Renée Fleming

RENÉE FLEMING Guilty Pleasures 4785107

It's an album full of goodies . . . designed both to showcase Fleming's voracious appetite for all kinds of music and to appeal to the widest possible audience. Fleming has managed to preserve the quality of the loveliest voice among the world's top sopranos these past 20 years. Indeed, she might easily be described as a guilty pleasure herself.

Record Review /
Hugh Canning,
The Times (London) / 14. July 2013

This is an album of sheer indulgence: the beautiful voice of Renée Fleming in a new and very personal selection of songs and arias featuring a feast of music, much of which we might never hear her sing on stage.

Record Review /
ArkivMusic / 17. September 2013

There are some worthy additions to her catalog: a lush aria from Dvorák's "Armida" that recalls her hit with his "Rusalka"; a piece from Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles" that incorporates vivid storytelling; and melting performances of songs by Canteloube, Rachmaninoff and Duparc . . . Sebastian Lang-Lessing and the Philharmonia Orchestra supply rich sound and generous emotion that match Fleming's sensibility.

. . . [the outstanding American soprano] has put together an album of sheer indulgence. Her beautiful voice features in a personal selection of songs and arias that include music we might never hear her sing on stage . . . GRANDIOSO!

Record Review /
New Classics / 14. November 2013

Renee Fleming is an amazing artist . . . Her "Poemes" album won a Grammy (her fourth) in 2013, and this one will no doubt score high as well . . . she is perfect for so much as it is. Her voice is astonishingly robust and vigorous . . . as rich -- probably richer -- than it has ever been. Technically she can't be bested, using her ever-expanding repertory to good effect in terms of learning all sorts of styles and affections . . . The eight different languages used on this recording display Fleming at her most versatile, and leave one hankering for more. Example: we are given two of Falla's magnificent "Siete canciones populares españolas", and they are so good, so perfectly rendered that it is a shame that she didn't just go ahead and record the other five . . . The same could be said about her sensitive treatment of "Träume" from Wagner's "Wesendonck-Lieder" . . . [a] ravishing aria from Tchaikovsky's early opera "Undina" . . . [Délibes / "Les filles de Cadix"]: lovely . . . exquisitely rendered . . . her beautiful lyric voice is always welcome in my house, and we need to treasure her while she is still active. May it be a long time.

. . . encompassing an impressive eight languages, the eclectic program is well ordered and engaging . . . Berlioz's "Villanelle" makes an inviting opener . . . Duparc's "Phidyle" is a stunner, building to a sensual climax that more than justifies the recording's title. In Delibes's coquettish bolero "Les filles de Cadix," saucy castanets exchange in seductive byplay with Fleming's flirtatious trills. She spins out long, rolling lines in Licinio Refice's reflective "Ombra di nube"; the hushed, delicate opening is one of her most gratifyingly simple moments. Especially delicious is the aria "Vodopad moy dyadva," from Tchaikovskv's "Undina" . . . Fleming's eloquent phrasing is an asset when fulfilling Tchaikovskv's emotive melodic demands, and she ends the aria with a shimmering messa di voce on a high A . . . [Fleming & Graham]: an instinctive unity of timbre and inflection . . . In ''Träume," from Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder", Fleming allows the passion to leak out phrase by phrase until it overtakes her in waves of yearning, and her voice responds with the kind of lush outpouring for which she is justly celebrated.

. . . [this] disc should satisfy her fans from the dilettante to the specialist listener. Together with conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing and the mighty London-based Phiharmonia, here is a disc that shows off her beautiful voice to great effect whilst bringing to mind those delightful 1960s mixed albums by the likes of de Los Angeles and Schwarzkopf . . . [there is] a judicious balance between opera and art song and all of these are designed to highlight Fleming's magnificent instrument and ease in at least six European languages. And her ability to communicate is sans pareil amongst contemporary singers . . . Whilst I would suggest that there's nothing particularly guilty about any of the pleasures contained within this fine album, there is much to share and admire, particularly Fleming's ability to communicate and spin that silvery legato line.

Record Review /
Hugh Canning,
The Sunday Times (London) / 19. January 2014

. . . she is (as I expected) completely in her element singing the Slavic songs and arias. Undine's aria, scarcely top-drawer Tchaikovsky, sounds moving and lovely in her hands . . . she really enters an entirely different world, interpretively, with Rachmaninoff's "Sumerki", which is as superb a piece of singing as I've heard from her . . . With the ever-excellent Graham to assist her, Fleming turns in a wonderfully idiomatic performance of the "Lakmé" Flower Duet . . . as soon as Fleming slips into her Slavic vein she does better, as in Dvorák's obscure aria from "Armida" . . . or the aria from "The Kiss", which is one of Smetana's better works. This is an opera I wish Fleming would record complete . . . I think it would be extremely interesting. She manages to have some fun with Johann Strauss's "Frag' mich oft", and captures a nice Viennese style . . . Fleming's performance of Wagner's "Träume" turns out to be one of this album's high points. Her expression here is exactly right, so too the rich, full tone and her superb styling. One almost wishes that she had given us the complete cycle on this disc . . . Fleming sings ["The Ghosts of Versailles"] as well as can be expected, including some lovely floated high notes (and a low A that gives more than a hint of her new contralto-like depths) . . . The recital ends with "Danny Boy", sung with fine expression . . . I'm sure that it will satisfy the diva's large fan base.